yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
So basically what you mean is that WP7 has no hope. On the bottom end (as far as updates go), you have Android who has not as many restrictions and more features than WP7, not to mention new devices pop up every other week. On the top end, Apple enforces it stict descipline and timely updates. WP7 is neither. It can barely get any updates out in 4 to 6 months, in other words, not much better than Android. It lacks both feature set and timely updates of iPhone.
[Windows Phone 7 General] weatherx:
apple makes both the iOS and the phones. if you don't abide by their rules, you don't get to sell iphones, period.

with WP7 it's a 3 way negotiation.
[Windows Phone 7 General] JamesAllen:
MS Will Reap the Rewards

Look, no matter what MS says in radio interviews, blogs etc. it will receive the glory or condemnation depending how users perceive their updates. MS can imply or even state that the carriers are delaying the update and it will make no difference to customers. Customers perceive this as an MS WP7 update. MS is a multi-billion dollar mega company and they need to start acting like it. Until now, they appear to be a child being dragged around by their parents and constantly on the defensive. Start acting like the company you are and should be.

I saw two reports from industry pundits stating that WP7 would be second only to Android by the end of 2015, surpassing all other phone OS's. They need to start flexing some muscle and ditch the deplorable agreements they have with carriers and OEM's relative to updates.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Google updates their OS twice a year or so. Then it takes from several months to never to get that new version on your phone. That's a very different story.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
Actually, if you have Nexus phones, you get more frequent updates. Whenever there is critical bugs, Google releases updated OSes but when that ever showing up in OEM phones is whole another story. Currently, two well-known critical bugs, SMS bug and root exploit, are both fixed but don't show up in any OEM phones.

Microsoft currently is in the same situation. There are many annoying bugs in WP7 and yet we still can't get a update 5 months after release. God forbid, if there is a zero-day exploit for WP7, we need wait another 5 months to get a fix because that's the speed both Microsoft and carriers move
[Windows Phone 7 General] vetvito:
You can't tell him that. He's being irrational right now. He says the DHD is a Google phone, and its Google's fault for it not having 2.3.

It's clearly carriers and OEMs holding updates.

Clue 1: Nodo has been finished since 2010

Clue 2: its only available to unlocked devices currently
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Please give me an example of a critical bug that Google patched. I'm not saying this hasn't happened, I just don't know. Then it would be useful to compare them with current WP7 bugs.

Also, I'm not saying the DHD is a "Google phone". I'm saying it's an Android phone.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
Obviously you have not followed Android.

Bug #1: SMS are randomly sent to wrong person on your contact list. Imagine your SMS send to girl friend #1 ended up on girl friend #2's inbox :) This is a known issue for quite while and finally get media exposure during holiday season and Google promptly fixed it and released in Android 2.2.2 or 2.3.2 or later OS. Currently there is no OEM phones (other than Google's own Nexus 1 and S) contain this level of OS (most on 2.2.1 as the latest).

Bug #2: Some malicious applications (over 50 of them) are found in Android Market that secrectly root your phone and download malware or extract your phone information. The method those apps uses is also a known exploit on Android OS for a while. Google promptly removed the offending apps and patched OS. Again, the patched OS are on quite late build of OS that majority of the OEM phones don't have it (and may never have it).

Bug #2 can show up in WP7 as well because there already is known ways to hack and unlocked WP7. When was Chevron Unlock (I'm not implying these tools are malicious)first released? Did Microsoft do anything about it to close the loophole? No.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
So you want to compare carrier unlocked "Google phones" to all WP7 phones including carrier locked ones?

I quoted an article where it was said that 2.3 update was promised for N1 handsets (carrier unlocked Google phones) on December 8. The update was delivered in the end of February and was said to deploy to all handsets in a matter of weeks. That's a Google phone experience - 2.5 months or so to get the update out and than weeks to deploy.

If we assume that all WP7 updates were ready in late December (which isn't true because there was no OEM part ready by that time), by end of March Microsoft delivered two updates (one of which may sound minor because it didn't bring new features but it's a difficult one because it was changing the bootloader/low level stuff, "the updater itself", and had to be coordinated with OEMs, although MS screwed up here). That's 3 months for two updates. Then there's the carrier delay, which doesn't exist in the "Google phone" case.

For a regular Android handset, it takes months to even get to carrier "testing", whatever it means, and then you still get a delay from an operator, and then it still takes some time to deploy the update to actual handsets. Usually by that time there's a new version of Android available (or it's close to that stage).

Now, at worst the situation with WP7 updates is on par with Nexus devices for all unlocked WP7 phones. Then in the case of subsidized phones you get a few week delay for that mysterious "testing" thing.

All I'm saying is that while it's much worse than Apple, it's orders of magnitude better than Android. All this hysteria is blowing things epically out of proportion.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vetvito:
Example

http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/google-releases-android-security-patch-following-attacks-23013

The Desire HD is a HTC phone that is running HTCs version of Android.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, WP7 doesn't have these bugs to begin with. #2 can't show up there because Marketplace is curated, and you simply can't put an app that copies another app and inserts a trojan there.

Critical bugs may (and most probably) will appear, but haven't so far, so there have been no security patches.

The pre-NoDo update wasn't something that you could push out easily because it meddled with OEM software. NoDo has changes made by OEMs as well. In the #1 and #2 you quote are changes in Google's only code. We shall see how quickly Microsoft reacts to security vulnerabilities, but so far there have been no precedents.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I get a "The service is overloaded or offline. Please try again later." message, but judging by the URL, that's a security vulnerability patch. This is different from maintenance and feature releases.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Chevron unlock doesn't use any security vulnerabilities and doesn't even touch the security system in WP7. It doesn't modify any code on the phone.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
So what? All Android phones except two are like that. All WP7 phones are better in terms of updates. That's exactly my point.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
It allows you, or a software, to install any 3rd party apps, doesn't it?
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
It is not better beause majority of WP7 phones haven't seen any updates yet. What's difference there comparing to Android? Unbranded WP7s are a small percentage of the WP7 base. That's the point we try to say here.
[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
Microsoft writes the drivers. There is very few things that Manufacturers are responsible for IRT WP7.

You act like that's an accomplishment. That's Android... ANDROID!

The OS we were all complaining about because of ****ty updates on the devices.

And Microsoft tried to Capitalize by giving us to FUD about how carriers won't be all up in our **** and the updates will be quick and uniform.

Desire HD gettign Ginger in end of Q2 is not bad.

HTC has to take Android and mold it to get it on their phone. They also have to modify all their drivers, their Sense Skin, thier stock apps, etc.

All Microsoft has to do is make one update which pretty much just worked on all phones (or is supposed to e.g. pre-NoDo).

Compared to Android, Microsoft is doing terribly. They had 1/20th the user base, an already dubious reputation, and are allready spitting in customers' face by telling them to wait a year for a "real" update on their phones. It will be laughable to see WP7 fans on this forum telling people to shut up and have fun with their non-factor NoDo update. This update is borderline useless, and doesn't address even half of the issues people are having with these phones, nevermind the lack of features which makes it non-competitive with other smartphone platforms.

There are sound reasons why Android updates are late. There's absolutely no reason for an update this fcking small to take as long as an Eclair to FroYo or FroYo to Gingerbread update for Android...
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Not any apps, and it doesn't allow software on the phone to install apps. You can't delete and replace system files, for example. Basically at best you get OEM level access, and then not to all functions available to OEMs. This isn't "root" access (although that would be a wrong analogy because in WP7 security rights are defined on process level, not user level).
[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
That's why you can't compare Android to WP7. The Manufacturers only have to test an update. They do not have to do heavy modifications to the codebase. With Android everytime the OS is updates the manufacturers have to start over to get the new version on the phone (Code - QA - Release to Carrier - Carrier QA - OTA to customer, rinse repeat). That costs a lot and takes a lot of time. This is why most "Normal" consumers don't ***** about Android updates. As long as you have a bit of common sense, the lag time makes sense. For Microsoft, it does not. Lots of people brought into WP7 because of the fact that the unified specs and unmodified base system facilitated a much better update experience. Microsoft found a way to fumble that, though...

The fact that the NoDo update is taking tons of time longer than it took HTC or Motorola to get FroYo onto their Evo/Droid X devices (and hell, even the Vibrant got a JI6 maintenance update that added a few features way faster than Microsoft pushed out NoDo) is embarassing.

The update processes is turning out to be worse than Android, especially when you realize that C&P should have been there from the beginning and without C&P you can't even call this a feature update. It's a maintenance/bug fix update for the most part, and a pretty shoddy one at that...
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
Watching how all the WP7 users use the registry hacks(Reg Editor app or direct registry modifying app) to fool MS update server, there are a lot can be exploited. Once you open this flood gate, it basically is just a Windows Mobile/CE OS. I use WM for years and know a lot of 'security' can be easily bypassed by a simple registry change.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Did you read what I wrote? The difference is time. If you think the fact I stated are wrong, please bring forward other facts.
[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
I think you're the one who's distorting the facts and ignoring others to make the NoDo update seem comparable to a FroYo or Gingerbread update, and make it seem like this amount of time to get such an insignificant update out is acceptable. Seriously, it's not.

Samsung had more in their Vibrant JI6 update than Microsoft has in NoDo. It's embarassing, and didn't they say they were finished with the update since December?
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
Let's see:

Android Froyo 2.2 officially anounced at end of May, 2010. First non-google device shipped with Froyo 2.2 appeared at the end of August, 2010.

WP7 NoDo anounced and almost ready at the end of Dec., 2010, First NoDo update went out at the end of March, 2010.

I don't see much the difference in time. Yes, WP7 in theory can be updated much faster but in reality it didn't.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Not all drivers. There's low-level stuff that OEMs do. You can easily see that by different bugs/performance specifics between different ROM versions which only differ in the OEM part. Bootloaders are one area where OEMs do the job (and these fail during updates, too). Both the pre-NoDo and NoDo bring changes to this area, and it's done by OEMs. There are tools in CE-based OSes that simplify and streamline the process, so at least this is doable unlike Android, but it just isn't as easy as it is in Apple's case.

Well, if you want to talk about how MS handled this, my opinion is that it's an epic fail to say the least.

So 7 months is not bad? Using double standards? As I said earlier, both updates relied on OEM code, and the number of SYS features doesn't change the difficulty of coordinating and pushing them out.

Of course I can.

Go ahead and bypass it. It certainly can be bypassed but hasn't been so far. Chevron doesn't break WP7 security.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Significance of an update doesn't mean much in terms of difficulty of coordination. Simple as that. If it's insignificant, on the other hand, there was no rush, was there?

Their part of the update was finished in December, that's what I've heard.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
There is not much security in WP7 to begin with. It is called 'security by obscurity'. Given time, they will come.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
First devices with NoDo were shipped earlier than the update was released, too. And if all Android devices got the updates within 3 months, that would be a huge improvement, actually.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
You guys love jumping from topic to topic. I was answering your point about critical security vulnerability patches issued fast by Google. If you want to discuss security in general, that's a different issue. So far there haven't been any security vulnerabilities in WP7 that needed a quick patch. Yet you are trying to give me Android patches as an example of how fast Google is, comparing them to maintenance/feature releases?
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
If all WP7 devices can get upates within 3 months, that will be something too. Although I'm not sure if I can call that success or improvement or just not let down.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
No, you read it wrong. I give you an example why Google's update process isn't working for push out critical security patch. And you keep comparing WP7 to Google's update process. We all know Google's update process is crap. And so far, WP7 hasn't proven to be any better. Don't tell me how WP7 update is better in theory. I knew that and that's why a lot of us bought into WP7 in the first place. But it now turns out not the case and MS disappointed us again. That's all I'm saying.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, we agree here. We'll see how this goes in reality, things may get better or worse with time as there are tons of factors influencing this, some of which I think I understand, others are a mystery.

I have no idea what carriers do when they "test" devices and why exactly they do it. My guess would be, on the other hand, that the speed with which they perform acceptance testing (which can't seriously take weeks) they play games with vendors, prioritizing or deprioritizing devices/platforms/specific suppliers. We can talk all we want but until WP7 has a significant market share there's not much MS can do to accelerate the process. Most probably this won't be an area where any OS can be an improvement.

Where MS certainly can be faster is the OEM part, because of standardizing hardware, tools such as the BSP, and, well, doing the OEM part themselves by hiring people to do the job. This part is indeed in the hands of MS for the most part, although not 100%. So you can reasonably expect updates to take 1-3 months to get deployed, and things here can go faster as both sides gain more experience working this way. Whether MS will do it well or screw up royally remains to be seen.

So far it's been a PR disaster more than anything else.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Let's see when the NoDo rollout ends and then compare. Although it's easy to see that in Android's case, updates for all devices wouldn't even get to the stage of carrier testing. So it is an improvement, although not as big as many here thought it would be.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
I tell you what carriers are testing: make sure it doesn't screw up phones. If a customer's phone get screwed up during update, the first thing they do is call carrier for support and/or complain. The second thing they do is sending the phone in for warranty replacement. Both are extremely expensive for carriers. If MS's original numbers on pre-NoDo updates are correct, there is 10% failure rate. That's a very scarely number to carriers. If they sold 1 million WP7 phones, that accounts for 100,000 unhappy customers and possible warranty returns.

What AT&T is doing right now is simply stalling. They don't want all these headaches and extra costs for nothing. They have new WP7 phones with NoDo already applied (HD7S) coming soon. So, they do their best to stall the current updates. And happy to sell you a new phone if you want NoDo updates.

It is. And word travels fast. Potential WP7 buyers will stay away.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, that's standard acceptance testing, and it doesn't take weeks. On the other hand, they obviously do a crappy job here since there were problematic updates, right? The question, thus, remains: what the hell do they do all this time?

Apart from that, among those 10% failures there were issues such as lack of hard drive space for backups, right? And by the way, the pre-NoDo was a total mess, not just PR. Everybody screwed up there, and it's Microsoft's total fault even though I'm 100% sure Samsung caused it. They should have known their "partners" by now.

This is true, word travels fast. And I'm absolutely puzzled by Microsoft's PR they are very well-paid professionals I'd guess, and this is a textbook situation they should know how to handle. Such things don't determine fates of platforms as some exaggerate, but that's only if proper lessons are learned and action is taken so that history doesn't repeat itself over and over.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
BTW, if I'm in charge of MS right now, I'll pay AT&T $5 per WP7 phones for all the potential trouble this update may or may not cause and ask AT&T to let the update pass. That's just a few million dollars to get the ball rolling.
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
It's pretty clear to me that ever since Nokia deal inked, everybody in MS laid back and not pushing as hard as they can. Because they know, at worst, they still have Nokia on the hook to keep pumping out millions of cheap WP7 phones.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
That's one possible explanation, typical when people talk about Microsoft. :)

Another one (which is what I think has happened) is different. First of all, OEMs did an unsurprising but still a nasty thing. They released devices with beta quality drivers (this isn't a guess, this is a fact, especially in the US). Other devices were with newer drivers. So instead of a uniform base there's a zoo of versions (I noticed something like three per handset). What else happened is that the differences in this low-level code didn't get back to Microsoft properly in the case of Samsung, or had some hardware-specific failures. Some of the things didn't report properly to the PC updater software, so that had to be changed as well. So instead of pushing out NoDo, Microsoft tried to harmonize the low-level stuff among devices to prepare a smooth update. That didn't go so well. Both carriers and OEMs saw that things are going out of control and got more cautious about letting MS do their thing, preferring to err on the safe side. This caused more iterations, more talking, more stuff like that. In the meanwhile the deal with Nokia occurred, so some people from the WP team (I guess not the most useless ones) got sent to Iceland (?) to work with Nokia engineers on this potential new handset. Also part of the team was assigned to work on new stuff like integrating Navteq maps or whatever, and some other part was assigned to explore potential customizations Nokia may use etc. etc. Oh, and yes, lots of people must have gone on long vacations between launch and February, so that didn't help either.

I don't know what's true, but my explanation seems much more plausible to me. :)
[Windows Phone 7 General] foxbat121:
There is only explanation: they are out of touch and don't know which is most important to ensure the success of the platform. MS is a big corporation and yet it seems they only allocated 10 ppl working on the entire mobile platform.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vetvito:
Again, Google only has two devices. Nexus S and Nexus 1 received 2.3.3 at the same time.

Microsoft has what 9 or 10, with a ton of other leaders to work with or against. They should've just cut the middle men out.
[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
Well, no. I'm just using common expectations. I don't expect Android phones to get updated on par with WP7 devices, but they are.

It's not that it takes the same time. It's that Microsoft are taking just as long to deliver a fairly non-factor update when Android OEMs are equalling them in delivering updates that require 5x more work to develop, test, and deploy.

Didn't read the rest.
[Windows Phone 7 General] z33dev33l:
How do they take 5 times the work? The linux kernel is ridiculously easy to build on, the system itself is a lot more loosely coded, and it's all just borrowed code. Android is by no means keeping up with WP7 in terms of updates. They haven't released a huge update that brought about anything discernible since 2.1... No one cares what froyo or gingerbread do, they just want the latest version with slightly different colors. Android is preying on people's stupidity just as much as iOS and WP7.
[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
TBQH, NoDo is a pretty non-factor update and comparing it to an Eclair to FroYo or FroYo to Gingerbread update is idiotic. It's comparable to a small maintenance update like the Vibrant JI6 update which was released in October to a phone that launched in... July (well, June 28th).

That JI6 update was released over Kies Mini, so no one had to wait for it. Same for the FroYo update. Kies Mini. Just plug your phone in and press update, the minute it went up.
[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
Microsoft writes the drivers for WP7. Why do you keep pinning this on the OEMs. Microsoft writes them. That is the reason why Microsoft only supports first gen snapdragons. Jeeze... Why do you keep spreading this misinformation, that the OEMs put buggy drivers in WP7. Yes, the OEMs do write some low level stuff, but most of the drivers (Cell Radio, Touchscreen, Storage subsystem, SoC, etc.) are written by Microsoft. That and the unified specs is what allows them to deploy largely the same update to every phone...
[Windows Phone 7 General] amtrakcn:
I don't think it really takes 5X work. Just look at how fast Google updates their device and how much longer it took some manufactures to update.

Is 7 months really necessary for an update from Android2.1 to Android2.2？Even much later than the CM team with insufficient developer, time and resource?

It's only a little bit more than 4 months since WP7 launch:D